In light of the events in Japan, and after seeing an awesome custom Acidstorm (who to me looked radioactive), I began to wonder why there was never a transformer that could harness nuclear weaponry. I seem to remember that Shockwave could harness it as a power source, but with a cartoon and comic series that started in the cold war era, why wasnt there ever this threat. Admittedly im not overly familiar with the original comic series, but I would have thought this would be a major weapon
Does anyone have any ideas?

Probably for the same reason Macross/Robotech never addressed it. Instead of "nuclear" weapons, they called them "reactionary" weapons. I guess talking about nukes were still a sore spot of some sorts. I had a insert in the macross saga (japanese edition) dvd set that more or less explained this I think. I'll go look it up here in a bit.

Well, there was Autobot Spike, I thought those missiles were supposedly nuclear.

Besides, there were a lot of fears about a possible nuclear war back then so some people might have had a problem with it. Not to mention that besides being a power source nuclear weapons are incredibly dirty things and not half as effective as a cannon powered by a ruby crystal .

As a matter of fact, this topic was one that there was a genuine embargo on for the show - they weren't even allowed to SAY "nuclear", precisely because it was the Cold War, and people were afraid of that.

As a matter of fact, this topic was one that there was a genuine embargo on for the show - they weren't even allowed to SAY "nuclear", precisely because it was the Cold War, and people were afraid of that.

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There were bans on these things? I can understand not wanting to scare kids with it I guess. Were there any other things banned? I mean Carbomya? Surely that ruffled some feathers?

Nothing else particularly unique I can think of, just the basic stuff you couldn't show in a cartoon back then - human death, profanity, sexy times, that sort of thing (those may sound very much like "well, no duh!" subjects, but they spelled these things out in the paperwork for writers all the same). The "no nuke" rule was very much a product of the time. It was also a rule on G.I. Joe - take a look at this original writer's guide document from the production of the Joe cartoon written by Steve Gerber for an idea of the attitudes that went into making these shows. You can see how Joe had another rule or two to work with because it was dealing with human terrorists that ran the risk of being accidentally associated with real people and places if they weren't careful - Transformers had less of a problem with that because the bad guys were giant robots, so they could get away with setting things in real cities, and do things like Carbombya.

(It's generally held, for instance, that Devcon got that "misspelled" name instead of the properly-spelled "Defcon" because that's the word for national alertness that was being widely bandied about in the public media amidst the nuclear scare.)

Nothing else particularly unique I can think of, just the basic stuff you couldn't show in a cartoon back then - human death, profanity, sexy times, that sort of thing (those may sound very much like "well, no duh!" subjects, but they spelled these things out in the paperwork for writers all the same).

As a matter of fact, this topic was one that there was a genuine embargo on for the show - they weren't even allowed to SAY "nuclear", precisely because it was the Cold War, and people were afraid of that.

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Hey Chris, I just pulled out an insert from the Japanese version of Macross (from dvd #8) which basically states what you did:

Reaction Weaponry

Reaction theory forms the foundation for all the advanced power systems and weaponry on both sides of Space War I. Humans uncovered the reaction process while dissecting the ship later named Macross. The intentionally vague "reaction" concept was used as an euphemism to avoid mentioning the words "nuclear" on-screen. According to Kawamori Shoji, the use of nuclear weaponry by the "good guys" was considered taboo by Japanese television stations.

I'd think if Decepticons got their hands on nuclear weaponry, it would've been the end of the Autobots. Too powerful, too easy, wouldn't make for long lasting stories. Plus with the idiocy of Starscream, they'd blow themselves up anyway.

they have no problem metioning nukes now in idws all hail megatron the decpticons get there hands on one and in international incident they have more nukes being launched by i believe russia on the location of i believe north korea chinese boarders on the autobots ,the 3 combaticons that are there and the predaking robots

Oh my gosh, yes. The Super Friends show, from a decade earlier, couldn't show any form of physical violence. You see that and you wonder why bother making the show at all. If Superman can't deal with an evil supervillain by smashing him in the face, how the @#$% does he defeat him?

they have no problem metioning nukes now in idws all hail megatron the decpticons get there hands on one and in international incident they have more nukes being launched by i believe russia on the location of i believe north korea chinese boarders on the autobots ,the 3 combaticons that are there and the predaking robots

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Because a three-year-old comic aimed at a nostalgia fandom audience is totally the same thing as a 25-year-old cartoon from the 1980s aimed at children.

Also, punctuation and capital letters are free today, feel free to use them!

Oh my gosh, yes. The Super Friends show, from a decade earlier, couldn't show any form of physical violence. You see that and you wonder why bother making the show at all. If Superman can't deal with an evil supervillain by smashing him in the face, how the @#$% does he defeat him?

Oh yes, the old cartoons were hilarious for that sort of thing. Didn't Heman have a restriction on showing the big guy using his weapons and hitting people, hence the infamous "punch the screen / cut to bad guy falling down" stock footage?

All things considered, shows like Batman and Gargoyles which were allowed real guns and some fairly brutal fights were pretty much pushing the envelope. I know Bruce Timm got really good at working around the restrictions like the infamous "Batgirl dies" scene in the late series episode "Over the Edge".